An Evening with Gwen Hallsmith
Executive Director of the Public Banking Institute

Gwen Hallsmith, the Executive Director of the Public Banking Institute will present on how public banking could play a role in financing a municipal electric utility and how Boulder can use public banking to enhance community wealth, resiliency, entrepreneurial participation and economic vitality. She will discuss the main advantage of public banking: lower-cost financing which enables states, counties and cities to better fund small business, infrastructure and projects such as affordable housing, libraries, farm-to-table agriculture, renewable energy, energy efficiency and public transportation. Each of these projects creates good local jobs. In these ways, public banks enable cities, counties, and states to better finance public priorities without relying on Wall Street or paying the high interest rates that pad big bank profits.

More About Gwen

Gwen most recently made national headlines with her work in Vermont to ask Town Meetings to consider public banking. On March 4th, 18 cities and towns in Vermont voted to endorse a resolution directing the state legislators to create a State Bank for Vermont. Thanks to the media expertise of William Boardman and Matt Stannard, the national media has picked up on the story, and there have been now over 20 radio interviews, print stories, and starting this week we’ll be on syndicated television with the story as well… Gwen has an interview with GritTV on Tuesday, and we understand that even bigger shows are working on the story – stay tuned.

Gwen is the author of several books on sustainable communities and economic reform, including her most recent book with Bernard Lietaer called Creating Wealth: Growing Local Communities with Local Currencies. She has been an advocate for economic reform for over 25 years, and implemented new currency projects on the local level in her recent position as the Director of Planning and Community Development for the City of Montpelier. Her work spans the globe – she has worked in all the major world regions at this point, and with cities, towns, regions, provinces, and states in the United States and Canada.

Her vision for the Public Banking Institute expands our horizons to include many other aspects of a public monetary system, everything from strengthening the possibilities for local investment that the new SEC regulations allow to fostering and supporting complementary currencies for local and regional means of exchange. Her deep commitment to local action matches our vision for the Institute as a source of technical assistance, training, and research for all the state, regional, and local initiatives underway to set up public banks and other currency and investment initiatives.